Connor McGrath Extended Writing Task
On Dante's Peak
Today I am going to be doing an extended writing task on Dante's
Peak, this will include, a description of what the area looked like
before the volcano had erupted, what evidence there was that the
volcano was going erupt, some of the arguments for leaving the town
given the evidence they had, the arguments against leaving even
though they had the evidence, what the volcano looked like during
the eruption and what it looked like after the eruption had
happened.
Before the volcano erupted there was a lot of colour in the town, you
couldn't walk down the street without seeing colourful flags or
shops or just bright vibrant colours in general. There were parades
in the street and children running around with smiles across their
faces, it was in a way the stereotype of a small happy town. Stood
proudly up on the hill is the snow covered Dante's Peak and the
forest that surrounds, it is the town's residents idea of paradise.
There was a fair bit of evidence that indicated that there was the
possibility that the volcano would erupt, but one of the most
convincing pieces is that the hot springs at the foot of the volcano
heated up to the point where two swimmers were scolded to death.
Other evidence include the fact that there was enough Carbon
Dioxide coming out of the volcano to kill nearby trees and wildlife,
there was also a high PH reading on the water of a nearby lake which
also indicated that the volcano could be about to erupt.
There was plenty reasons to leave the town of Dante's Peak at this
point but the main one was just the simple fact that anything below
or at the foot of the volcano would surely be destroyed if the
volcano did erupt, this would be done so by a thick layer of ash and
the rivers of molten lava.
Despite the evidence that I told you about earlier, there was
reasons to stay in Dante's Peak and not evacuate. The first one
being they did not have scientific evidence that the volcano was
going to erupt, it was a human opinion which is not as trust worthy as
scientific evidence. Also there had been cases before where they
had thought a volcano was going to erupt but it didn't and it was too
late because the town had already been evacuated.
During the eruption, the way the town looked was almost the
complete opposite of what it was before, before it was colourful and
bright, now everything was dark and covered in ash, rivers of molten
lava streamed down the streets. Buildings and bridges collapsed as
clouds of ash crashed through them like a nail into a wall. You could
have stood and just watched a simple family town burning to the
ground building by building.
After the eruption it was like a ghost town, everything was that
same colour of dark grey ash. The remains of what where before
shops and houses stood in their misery, the town of Dante's Peak is
now nothing but a shell of what the town that once stood there
before was.
To conclude the eruption of Dante's Peak destroyed the town to the
point where it was unrecognisable as one of the most desirable
places to live in the USA, a testimony to the destruction that even
just one eruption can have on so many people's lives.